As the topic says, what does "scuttling" mean in the 40k context?

Does it mean "planet bound for millenia"? Or is it "ancient hulk"? That kind of thing.

I'm not sure it's something done very often, but I'd wager it would invlove smashing the warp drive and geller field generator. good luck getting it anywhere then.

I think it could mean a few different things. The intention is that the ship is effectively destroyed.

The most similar to the action of scuttling, opening the scuttles to let water in, would be to blow the airlocks so that the ship could not support life

The most similar to the effect, sending the ship to the bottom of the ocean, would be to set it on an uncontrolled re-entry towards something big enough to make that a problem.

To me, scuttling a ship would mean destroying the warp drive and plasma drive in a non-catastrophic manner, and then destroy the life support systems to the ship could not support life. I would also take out the main cogitators also. That would essentially make the ship a hunk of junk. I put in the limitation that the drives are not catastrophically destroyed, cause that would fall under self-destruction, but the difference is pretty fine.

The most definite way to make sure a ship is never used is to use your own ship to tow it toward the Star of whatever system the battle took place in, and then release it to let it keep drifting. Orbital mechanics mean any body heading in a star's direction, rather than around it, will be pulled in pretty quickly and even the big ships of the 40K setting will be swallowed up with negligable effect by a star.

My PCs came up with this one after wrecking a few Ork ships. The nature of Ork technology does mean that they were useless to the Imperium, but that the Orks could probably get them working again faster than humans would like if another Ork ship found the drifting hulks. I can see heavily tainted Chaos ships (such as the Pestilaans) getting the same treatment as well.

A gas giant planet would do the job just as nicely of course, if one is closer than a star.

Ships scuttled in my campaign have the control runs to life support and maneuvering slagged, the airlocks blown and the emergency vents for fire suppression welded open.

The more considerate captains who scuttle stuff put it on a heading out of the usual shipping lanes, while the more safety-conscious (or penny-pinching) will drain and/or dump the fuel and reaction mass for the plasma and warp drives, but it's all a matter of personal preference.

I also have it as a (oft-ignored) legal requirement for the location of a scuttled hulk to be reported to the Navy and Administratum, and, if in Imperial space. a beacon planted on the hulk to warn of the navigational hazard (and make it easier to find for later salvage).

Most of the time, however, people just use the emergency vent system to void all compartments, disengage or smash the safety interlocks and overload the main drive. It makes a purty explosion*, and any wreckage/debris is going to be small and predominantly in an expanding cone along whatever heading the left it on.

*I've got a description somewhere I wrote for the scuttling of one of the pirate raiders from Into the Maw, which I think is rather cool. I'll dig it out for people and post it some time when I'm not completely shattered.

Thanks for the replies guys. I'm specifically thinking about the PC's coming across a "scuttled" or "abandoned" ship. So anything that destroys the ship isn't so helpful. Still, lots of food for thought.

hmm.. then you have a few possibilities (or combination thereof).

The ship has been vented to space, all air is gone none in life support systems either. You want air? Bring your own.

The ships main cogitator machine spirit has been destroyed. No major systems components work correctly if at all. Zero-G or mixed up gravity

The generator has been destroyed or is completely out of fuel. Nothing works no lights. The machine spirit may, might, non zero chance still have back up power. Zero-G

The ship is immobile, the drives and thrusters are destroyed. Ship slowly tumbles through space.

The Bridge (and any backups) are destroyed. Systems no longer function as a whole making the ship all but impossible to operate. Everything will have to be jury rigged and controlled from the components themselves starting with the ship communications. The guy stearing cannot see where they are going, the guy with his foot on the gas does not know how fast they are going, the guy who can see where they are going cant do anything etc, etc. And they all have to talk to each other through a middle man.

Have fun with it, go with a theme dark and powerless for horror, bridge destroyed for some comedy etc.

Nautically, the intention of scuttling is to destroy your ship. In 40k, you can scuttle many ways depending on what resources are at-hand when the decision is made. If however, we follow with the intention of attempting to destroy your ship, and for purposes of discussing it in less than a total success - I could think of a few ways - that might be interesting.

Outside of a star system you could have your ship start a warp jump, and then abaondon it - in the warp (I assume it would eventually drift towards the Eye of Terror and be used by Chaos, so, not a very good idea). Maybe it drifted back out, but it's now got a warp-flavour.

You could attempt to set your ship on a degrading orbit and either do it successfully (ie. a crashed ship - but not too crashed for purposes of the game) - and you get to deal with the resulting conditions of the planet it crashed on (ice, fire, plants, dust, natives, water, etc) or unsuccessfully (a dangerous, but stable orbit - but the ship is mostly fine - if balanced precariously).

You could attempt to burn it in the central star (but for whatever reasons it didnt work), but failed: you've now got half of ship slowly melted on one side, and an interesting environ ro explore.

You could have set course for a asteroid field and abandonded it, resulting in a cratered and torn-open hulk - but still interesting to investigate.

Set course for some kind of cosmic phenomena and leave it to the elements - resulting in whatever effect you like.

The most efficient procedure for scuttling a ship (in order to destroy it) would be to place demolition charges on the engines, shields, cogitators, power and life support in approximate order of preference. It is possible to destroy these systems from the outside but to be sure you want to do it from inside. Its up to you to decide what systems you want salvageable if any.

With at least the engines disabled you tow the ship onto a collision course with a Sun (or gas giant if your pushed) and not disengage the tow ropes until your very close to the Sun. If you don’t get it exactly right the ship will go into an elliptical orbit around the Sun (due to orbital mechanics) and depending how close it gets will tell you how damaged it is with each orbit (getting more and more damaged each time). If you detect that it will miss the Sun you would want to shoot at the ship to change its orbit to into the Sun.

Depending on the scenario you are setting up you could have the attacking ship in a hurry to leave the system and thus not do a proper job of scuttling the ship so it could be as salvageable as you like. Depending on what components survive the scuttling will tell you what the ship will be like (or if there are survivors what they have repaired). If the engines are intact the ship could be brought out of its orbit (or was put in that orbit before the survivors died trying to repair the ship), If the shields, life support and power are working there could be survivors (no shields and they would cook close in to the sun, some may survive up to you). There could still be bombs on some of the components that failed to detonate.

To be honest there is a lot you could do with the concept so just come up with a reasonable idea and run with it. Whatever you think would make a good story.

Good luck and have fun.